A Friend I Can Count On
by bbybear85
Summary: Relena and Wufei end up in a secluding situation to finally talk some things out.  "So we're friends, now?"  Wufei answered her with a sigh.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing**

The Siberian winter was brutal to the gentle constitutions of the young former princess, turned Vice Foreign Minister. Since arriving, her lips had chapped like never before, her skin was dry and she was getting split ends in her long golden hair. Relena sighed, thinking about how it was time for a fresh cut when she got home, as she made her way into the conference hall under Preventer escort.

Wufei Chang, a well-respected agent and former Gundam pilot, had been placed as head of her security for this trip. Relena was not surprised in the least when he intentionally blew off her efforts at friendly conversation. It was no secret that Wufei was not a big Peacecraft-Darlian supporter. During the Barton Uprising, he'd gone as far as to join the enemy ranks and battle his colleagues, the other Gundam pilots, as a statement against her belief in Total Pacifism. Now he'd atoned for his crimes and had been given a position within the Preventers, but he still showed only distain for the young politician.

Relena smiled silently as she watched him pointedly ignore her. She knew very well that he didn't want this job, but he knew that if he failed, he'd have to face Heero Yuy; and as such had treated it like this woman, he hated, was the only thing that mattered in this world. He'd rather protect her than accept a duel with the stronger pilot, once she was gone.

Relena found herself drifting into daydreams while Ambassador Ali talked in a painful monotonous voice about the need for recreational outlets in the greater Middle East area. She had her mind on one thing. Where was Heero? And why was he not here? She smiled, thinking how she'd love to just sit and talk with him in this brutal winter wonderland. Her feelings during such talks had never been strictly plutonic, but she knew, even in her daydreams, that she could never expect more from him than a chaste kiss, and even that would be shockingly hard to come by. But inside her mind she concocted various extreme circumstances that would require more. Namely, the brutal winter could give to the need for more body heat to keep her warm. Yes. Having Heero strip down and hold her close would definitely protect her from hypothermia. Definitely.

Relena was broken from her warming thoughts by a firm grip on the shoulder. "We need to leave," Wufei whispered, pulling her from the chair before she could protest. "Now."

"What happened?" She asked in a panicked, hushed tone.

He answered her with silence, scanning the halls and corridors as he led her into the basement. Relena jumped at the crashing sound, when Wufei shoved some pantry shelves out from his way, revealing a small, thick, steal door. Wufei needed most of his immediate strength to open it, and shoved Relena through. She found herself at the top of a long, rundown, metal latter, looking down into darkness, with no end in sight.

"Move," he ordered.

"But—"

"Move. Now."

Relena grumbled under her breath as she started down the latter, one rung at a time.

"Faster," he commanded.

"You'd catch more flies with honey, you know," she growled, swatting at his leg. "I could probably move a lot faster, if you would just ask nicel—"

Relena's word disintegrated into a violent ball of fire as an explosion above threw her and her body guard into the dark abyss below.

:::

Relena felt herself slowly fading back into the world of the living, with feather light fingers dancing over her head and limbs. The touch, though medical in nature, was soothing against the intense aches and pains her body found at the base of the cavern. She fought to continue regaining consciousness, squinting up at Agent Chang.

"Nothing's broken," he said in a cold voice.

"Where—are we?" She asked.

"An old bomb shelter under the conference hall. It protected us from the majority of the explosion, but it doesn't seem to be insulated from the cold, like I'd hoped."

Relena sat up, shivering in the freezing temperature as she tried to look around. "Then, the Summit was hit? They—my friends—?"

Wufei shook his head. "I don't know what it looks like up there, but it's probably not good. Don't count on survivors."

Relena felt winded, like she had been hit in the stomach.

"Hopefully the Preventers will come looking for us, while they clear the scene. We shouldn't have survived either, so it might take a while."

He looked down at the trembling woman, her legs bare from the knees down and her jacket torn, without a hint of compassion in his eyes. Nonetheless, he removed his leather jacket and offered it to her. "Take this. It'll help keep you warm." As he laid it across her shoulders, he looked around into the darkness. "I'll see if there's a heating element. We won't last long in this cold."

Relena curled into a ball under his jacket, waiting for his return. Several long, icy minutes passed as her temperature continued to drop closer to that of the air around her. She was thankful for the jacket, helping ward off the leaching cold, but it was only slowing the inevitable. She was freezing.

Wufei emerged back into her vision, mumbling expletives under his breath. "Heat's dead," he said, refusing to look down at her as he crossed his arms. "I should have known this would happen."

Relena answered him with a quiet chattering of the teeth. The sound only emphasized his own desire to keep warm.

Finally, he looked down on her through narrow eyes. "You're still cold."

She nodded, her muscles taught in an unconscious effort to warm her.

He sighed, sinking down next to her. "We'll share," he said, staring at the darkness in front of him.

She took a sharp breath, looking up at him in surprise, as he began to unbutton his dress shirt. Under the long sleeved white shirt he wore a simple tank top undershirt, barely covering his sharp cut muscles, trained to kill in the martial arts of his fathers. This was not who she was thinking about getting close to, to "keep warm". How did this happen? But even with the tense relationship between them, Relena knew her physical need for survival overrode her desire to maintain distance.

She sighed, leaning her stiff body against his hard chest as he brought the layers of his shirt and jacket around them.

:::

Being with Chang Wufei, Relena found herself feeling alone with her thoughts in the silence. He had nothing to say. At first, she was thankful for it. She needed time to process the recent events. She bit back tears, thinking how kind some of the older men she worked closely with had been to her. How they would never be kind, again. She considered asking him who was behind the terrorist attack, but she knew he felt the information was a need to know, and he would think she didn't have the need to know.

Finally, in a ditch attempt to calm her nerves, she began to wonder about Heero. She would rather be lying against _his_ bare chest at this moment. Her body began to heat at the thought, as a mischievous grin played on her face. Suddenly, she realized how inappropriate it was to think of Heero that way while she was finally beginning to relax, in a fetal position, virtually in his coworker's lap.

"Thank you," Relena said, looking for a conversation to occupy her mind away from the panic or a fantasy.

Wufei opened his eyes and looked down at her, frowning. "I'm only keeping my word."

She smiled, sadly, resting her head on his shoulder. "I know. But just because you did it for someone else, doesn't mean I shouldn't thank you."

He answered her with silence, closing his eyes, again, as he laid his head back against the wall.

"Who did this?" She ventured.

"Irrelevant," he growled, as Relena had expected. "You will not be meeting any demands or bowing to their wills. Who they are doesn't matter. What they have done is unjust, cowardly and weak; and when the Preventers find them, they will pay for their crimes."

"Not everything is black and white, you know."

"I know," he sighed, exposing the tiniest part of an inner layer.

Relena grinned at the softness in his tone. "Really, though," she said. "Thank you. I'm lucky the Preventers gave you this mission. You saved my life."

He cracked his eyes open, again, to look at her. "This wasn't my mission. It was Yuy's. He gave it to me."


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing**

Wufei cracked his eyes open, again, to look at Relena. "This wasn't my mission. It was Yuy's. He gave it to me."

"Heero gave you this mission?"

"Yes. I did it as a favor."

"Oh."

"He had something to do, apparently. And I think he's concerned about your strange new obsession with 'getting to know me'."

Relena laughed at herself. He had her decoded in no time flat.

"I suppose it's the equivalent of accepting a compliment, though. Yuy doesn't leave your safety in the hands of just anyone."

She sat quietly, considering his words. Heero really did seem to care that she was alive, safe and healthy. But she understood that his mission in life was to keep her so because of what she represented. Everything he and his friends had fought and sacrificed for had been reincarnated in her. In her career. She was the Dove of Peace. A symbol of the new era. And losing her could mean losing their accomplishment.

"Yeah," she sighed. "I suppose losing me could start a war."

Wufei snorted at her. "Don't flatter yourself. If you were killed, you'd become a martyr. Yuy and all of your other faithful followers would continue to carry your banner, long after your death, maintaining the peace we've won."

Relena looked up at him, surprised. "Then," she started, fighting back the butterflies as she asked the question. "Why?"

Wufei opened his eyes, gazing at the darkness, before glancing down at her with one brow raised. "You're joking?"

Relena had unconsciously pulled her fist up to her chest, to fight back at the nerves. She shook her head silently.

Wufei sneered at her. "That man's an idiot for you."

She flinched at his words.

"Really. Do you have any idea what kind of a catastrophe he could have caused with that stunt he pulled in the Eve's War? Rescuing your sorry ass from Libra?"

She shook her head. "Heero only saved me then because Lucrezia found out I was out there, and she was worried about me. It had her distracted."

Wufei's eyebrows rose in surprise. "He told you that, did he?"

She nodded, firm in her understanding.

"Ha!" He belted out, loudly. "The only person you were distracting was him. In fact, the rest of us didn't even know you were there until we found him missing. Even Noin. Only Duo and his girlfriend knew. As soon as he relayed the information to Heero, he took off."

Relena looked away from his gaze, rerunning the events in her mind. Didn't he say Lucrezia was worried? Or that she _would_ be worried? No. He said that she knew. "He lied?"

Wufei began to snigger at her. "Apparently."

She ran her fingers through her hair, wondering why he would have lied to her.

"That boy's a fool for you. He's in love with you. It makes him weak."

"No, he's not," she rebutted weakly. "He's just my friend. And what would you know about love, anyway? You've never loved anyone in your life."

Wufei's grin faded back to a scowl, and he dodged any further eye contact.

Relena recognized that she'd hurt him, and reached up to touch his face. "Wufei?"

He shrugged her off. "I'm fine, Onna."

"Wufei," she whispered in a soothing, apologetic tone. "Who was she?"

He sat silently, deciding if the truth was worth the effort. He could feel his body temperature still dropping, though slowly, and decided he needed the distraction. "Meilan," he answered.

Relena waited for a few quiet moments, watching the sad look in his eyes before she pressed for more. "Tell me about her?"

Wufei released a deep, heavy sigh. "She was my wife."

Relena's eyes widened at the statement.

"We were fourteen. It was an arranged marriage. I didn't love her at first. It just—happened." He looked at her, now. "She challenged me when she thought I was weak. I fought back with everything I had. When the war came for us, I went into battle to defend her, but I was too late. I—lost her." His head hung.

Relena snuggled instinctually closer to his chest, wrapping her arms around him to comfort him. The gesture had a much more important effect, increasing their body head as Wufei tightened the coat around them. "I'm sorry," she whispered into the silence.

Wufei folded his emotions back up and stored them, again, deep inside himself. He studied his charge with much softer, friendlier eyes, now that he'd opened up to her. "I've told you the truth. Now you must make me a promise."

Relena met his gaze, questioning him.

A smile tugged at his lips. "When we get the hell out of here, which we will, you need to tell Yuy how you feel about him."

Her face flushed with panic. "Oh, no, Wufei! I couldn't." She shook her head furiously. "He'd never—"

"No, no," he said. "Don't be a coward."

"I'm not," she said. "I just—"

"Listen, Onna. The longer you wait to talk to that man about your relationship, the more of a distraction you two become. I've even observed Lady Une eavesdropping on local gossip to glean whatever she can on the status of yours and Heero's relationship. And frankly, I find it irritating."

Relena looked away from him, blushing even deeper.

"You want to be my friend, right?"

She gave him a coy smile.

"Well, now I've told you something about myself. You can make me a promise. This Heero thing. Deal with it. There's no sense carrying it on, anymore. And if it is just sexual frustration, there's no shame in that. But when we get back to headquarters, you promise me that you'll sit down and talk about the status of your relationship."

Finally she nodded.

"Now, don't let him lead the conversation, either. If Yuy has his way, he'll lead you in circles for several more years. You're both adults, now, with more maturity and life experience than most people _twice_ your age. Flex your political muscles and stay on target. Find out what you mean to him and what you are going to do about it. Fair?"

"Fair," she squeaked.

Wufei grunted, tightening the embrace around her, pulling her warmth to him. He was still cold, but at least they were there for each other.

"So we're friends, now?"

Wufei answered her with a sigh.

"Good," Relena smiled. "I like to know I have friends I can trust."

:::

Relena was starting to drift into a cold sleep when she was startled by noises above. Suddenly debris and ash came pouring down the entrance shaft, collapsing into a messy pile at the bottom. Within seconds a pair of feet came repelling into view. The body's black on black attire made it hard to make out, and even his dark brown hair was shrouded in shadow, but when familiar violet eyes came into view, Relena nearly leapt to her feet.

"Duo!" She cried, leaping to her feet. She was hit with a wall of cold, but it didn't stop her in her excitement.

He squinted to make out the figures watching him from the wall. Relena's movement made it easier for his eyes to focus on her and—Wufei's half naked chest. Duo whistled for exclamation. "Woah, there, Wufei! You better get your shirt back on before the boss gets here. If he sees you in that state of undress with the princess he'll—"

Before Duo could even finish the sentence, the second rope came flying into view. Heero dropped from it, above Duo's head, to reach ground faster. Wufei pulled the shirt and jacket around him as he stood, meeting the other pilots penetrating stare.

"—have your head." Duo finished.

"The heat failed us," Wufei explained, without being asked. "We've been down here for three hours."

Heero's eyes scanned Relena mechanically, noting the scrapes and bruises, before he processed that she'd started shivering, again. He nodded solidly at Wufei, removing his own jacket and offering it to her.

Once she was bundled in the leather coat, Heero gently guided her into Duo's embrace, signaling for the jovial pilot to ascend to ground level. Duo carried her off.

Heero turned to Wufei before they went up. "Thank you," he said in a stony voice. "For taking care of her."

With another nod of acknowledgement, the men were off, making their way up the shaft.

:::

Wufei stood amongst the wreckage, next to Duo, watching Heero guide Relena toward the helicopter.

"Relena," he called out.

She stopped and looked back at him.

Wufei grinned slightly. "You promised."

She blushed, looking down at Heero's arm, which was secured, protectively, around her waist. When her eyes met Wufei's again, she shook her head in agreement. She promised. And she never went back on her word.


End file.
